Still life with birds

Master of Hartford

(active in Rome first half of the 17th century)

The painting was part of the group of artworks seized from Cavalier d’Arpino in 1607 and then added to the collection of Cardinal Scipione Borghese. This work marks the beginnings of still life, a highly successful genre throughout the century and for the most part practiced by Dutch and Flemish painters. The exactness with which the different species of birds are depicted, lined up on hooks or lying on the table, including the only living element, the owl, bring to mind a Flemish master, as well as the most brilliant Italian still life painter at the beginning of the 17th century, the young Caravaggio. The stylistic affinity with a still life preserved in the American museum in Hartford, which gives its unknown painter the conventional name of Hartford Master, has suggested that he may be the author of the Borghese painting, a hypothesis that has extensively fuelled the critical debate of recent decades.

Object details

Commentary

This painting is a still life of birds, different species of which can be distinguished. While some hang from a rod which runs along the upper portion of the scene, others are arranged horizontally on various levels. The variety of birds shown here is meticulously rendered, with careful attention paid to the morphological details which characterise the different species. The only living creature in the composition is the owl depicted frontally in the left portion of the painting.

The work was attributed to the Master of Hartford for the first time in the 1970s by Federico Zeri (1976, pp. 92-103) on the basis of its stylistic affinities to the artist’s ‘namepiece’, the Still Life with Flowers and Fruits at the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art in Hartford.

Zeri’s reference to the Master of Hartford implicates the Vase of Flowers, Fruit, and Vegetables as well, which is also part of the Borghese Collection (inv. no. 54) and has been recognised as the pendant of the Still Life with Birds.

In this context, the scholar suggested identifying this artist with the young Caravaggio, during the period in which he frequented the Roman workshop of Cavaliere d’Arpino. Originally, this timeframe was believed to correspond to the second half of 1593, though more recent analysis of the documentary evidence now postdates this episode to roughly three years later (for an in-depth treatment of the question, see R. Gandolfi, A. Zuccari, ‘I primi anni di Caravaggio’, in Dentro Caravaggio, exhibition catalogue (Milan, Palazzo Reale, 2017-2018), ed. R. Vodret Adamo, Milan 2017, pp. 249-260).

It was in fact Paola Della Pergola (1959, II, p. 170, n. 248) who tracked down mention of the Still Life with Birds in the list of paintings confiscated from Cavaliere d’Arpino by Paul V in 1607, which were subsequently donated to the cardinal-nephew Scipione Borghese. On the basis of the descriptions given here, the painting corresponds to no. 38 in that inventory, which, however, lacks attributions. The entry reads, ‘A painting with various dead fowl, without a frame’. In addition, the scholar noted a payment made to Annibale Duranti in 1619 for three frames, of which one was for a painting ‘with the many dead birds’, a subject which in the Borghese Collection can only indicate the work in question. On that occasion, Della Pergola ascribed the painting to an anonymous Flemish painter active during the second half of the 16th century, without connecting it to its pendant, the Still Life with Flowers and Fruits, which she rather attributed to Karel Van Vogelaer (1959, II, p. 191, n. 287). Subsequently, Zeri (op. cit.) identified the latter painting with the entry immediately following that for the Still Life with Birds in the same inventory. In addition, he proposed that two more entries in that list, nos. 47 and 96, corresponded, respectively, to the Master of Hartford’s ‘namepiece’ and to the Allegory of Spring (in the Francesco Micheli collection). Zeri attributed the latter work to the same artist: at the time of the inventory it was unfinished, still lacking the figures, which would be later added by Carlo Saraceni.

Having established Cesari’s workshop as the point of reference, Zeri went on to propose attributing to Caravaggio those works which until then had been grouped around the still life at the Wadsworth Atheneum, including the two paintings held by Galleria Borghese. One element contributing to Zeri’s hypothesis was his reading of artistic sources of the period, in particular the famous passage by Giovanni Pietro Bellori: ‘driven by necessity, [Caravaggio] went to serve Cavaliere Giuseppe d’Arpino, who had him paint flowers and fruits, which he did so well that many came to admire such great beauty, which gives so much pleasure today. He painted a carafe of flowers showing the transparency of the water and the glass and the reflections of the window of a room, as well as the fresh dew which sprinkled the flowers, and with the same excellence he imitated such details in other paintings’ (Bellori [1672] 2009, p. 213). Incidentally, the scholar believes that the work described in the last part of the passage may correspond to one which resembles the above-mentioned Allegory of Spring.

Over the decades following the publication of Zeri’s suggestion, critics came back to the question many times, without, however, managing to definitively resolve the doubts as to the identity of the mysterious painter of the still lifes. Some, including Maurizio Calvesi (“L’Espresso”, 11 February 1979), have refused to recognize the hand of Caravaggio in the two works of the Borghese Collection, while others have shown openness to this possibility, though qualifying it by proposing the artist’s participation in the context of a collective execution. This was the opinion given by Maurizio Marini (1984, pp. 12-13), initially only for the Vase of Flowers, Fruit, and Vegetables, with which he saw a close connection with the still life in Hartford: for both works, he proposed the involvement of the young Merisi together with another artist, perhaps Bernardino Cesari or Francesco Zucchi, brother of the better-known Jacopo. Marini in fact wished to attribute other works ascribed to the Master of Hartford to Francesco, including the Still Life with Birds. Subsequently, Marini continued to maintain that the Hartford group came from the circle of Cesari’s workshop and more generally that they were the fruit of that routine collaboration that characterised those milieux (Marini 2005, pp. 369-370).

In 1993, Minna Heimbürger (1993, pp. 69-84) suggested attributing both works to Frans Snyders; for the Still Life with Birds in particular, she proposed a suggestive comparison with the painting Birds by the Flemish artist (Aachen, Suermondt-Ludwig-Museum), in which a living owl stands out, just like in the Borghese work. Nonetheless, on a stylistic level it is clear that the two still lifes employ different idioms, as Alberto Cottino (1995, pp. 118-119, nos 18-19) showed on the occasion of the exhibition La natura morta al tempo di Caravaggio (Rome, Musei Capitolini, 1995); this scholar was persuaded that the canvases in the Borghese collection were by an Italian artist and specifically by one from Caravaggio’s orbit. Following her analysis of Cesari’s collection, Kristina Herrmann Fiore (2000, pp. 63-64) agreed that the Borghese works were linked to Caravaggio’s circle, although she excluded Merisi’s direct participation, as she claimed that the master took a different approach in reproducing natural elements and treating light.

Other hypotheses have put forth the name of Prospero Orsi, called Prosperino delle Grottesche, as the true Master of Hartford. While a number of scholars have been open to this suggestion (Strinati 2001, p. 16; Spezzaferro 2002, pp. 31-32; Whitfield 2007, p. 11; Schifferer 2009, p. 175; Gregori 2009, p. 168), others have pointed to substantial differences between the Borghese canvases and the other still lifes of the Hartford group, leading them to attribute the latter works to a different, unknown artist (Markova 2000, pp. 52-55).

Apart from the complex question of attribution, at least two certain assertions can be made about the Still Life with Birds. To begin with, it could not have been executed after 4 May 1607, the day of the confiscation of Cesari’s goods. Secondly, the Vase of Flowers, Fruit, and Vegetables is definitively the pendant of the work in question. The idea was first proposed by Zeri, though not all critics were in agreement. Today, however, the connection has been established beyond doubt, thanks to diagnostic investigations performed by Davide Bussolari (2016, pp. 279-289) on the occasion of the exhibition L’origine della natura morta in Italia. Caravaggio e il maestro di Hartford (Rome, Galleria Borghese, 2016-2017). Non-invasive tests in fact revealed that the two paintings share several technical characteristics, such as the canvas type and weave – with both made from two pieces of fabric each – and even the same method of stitching. Originally, the paintings had the same dimensions: today, these are slightly different because at some point they were cut for reasons that are not clear.

This exhibition, then, provided the opportunity for conducting diagnostic testing which enriched our knowledge about the Still Life with Birds and its pendant. It also represented the first time that the four works identified by Zeri in the inventory of the paintings confiscated from Cesari and ascribed to the Master of Hartford (the two canvases of the Borghese collection, the Hartford still life and the Allegory of Spring) were brought together following more than four centuries of history. The event gave viewers the opportunity to reflect on the activity of this artist, whose identity is still unknown.

Pier Ludovico Puddu